A Forum for Vigorous Debate, Cornerstone of Democracy

***********************************************************************************************************************************A FORUM FOR FREEDOM OF SPEECH AND VIGOROUS DEBATE, CORNERSTONES OF DEMOCRACY[For the journal(guidelines, focus, etc.), go to www.theamericandissident.org].Encouraged censorship and self-censorship seem to have become popular in America today. Those who censor others, not just self, tend to favor the term "moderate," as opposed to "censor" and "moderation" to "censorship." But that doesn't change what they do. They still act as Little Caesars or Big Brother protectors of the thin-skinned. Democracy, however, demands a tough populace, not so easily offended. On this blog, and to buck the trend of censorship, banning, and ostracizing, comments are NEVER "moderated." Rarely (almost NEVER) do the targets of these blog entries respond in an effort to defend themselves with cogent counter-argumentation. This blog is testimony to how little academics, poets, critics, newspaper editors, cartoonists, political hacks, cultural council apparatchiks, librarians et al appreciate VIGOROUS DEBATE, cornerstone of democracy. Clearly, far too many of them could likely prosper just fine in places like communist China and Cuba or Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Russia.

Tuesday, October 30, 2012

How does ones mind end up
following a party line in all ways?Difficult question.In any case,
that’s the title of the above aquarelle, which features Democrat in Chief
Howard Dean feeding Becky Tuch, editor of the Review Review.In supine position is courtjester poet Ian Thal.The sketch was influenced by Goya’s “Las
Chinchillas.” Tuch had written a politically-correct
inspired negative review of an issue of The American Dissident. I'd met Howard Dean briefly, while I was protesting in front of the Emerson Umbrella Center for the Arts during the Concord Festival of Authors. He was guest speaker and refused to even take a flyer. A partir de la
marde, la creativite! Merci,
mademoiselle Tuch et cie.

Thursday, October 25, 2012

The Anti-Freedom
of Speech Mission to Destroy Public Education in America:A Counter-Essay

Thought &
Action (the National Education Association’s Higher Education Journal) published (Fall 2012) “The Anti-Egalitarian Mission to Destroy Public
Education in America,” written by an educational bureaucrat, Jon E. Travis,
Professor of Educational Leadership at Texas A&M University-Commerce.In that essay, Travis decried so-called “anti-egalitarians” as “individuals hostile to the
tenets of American liberty.” Furthermore, he labeled those faceless
individuals as “oligarchs” seeking to restrict “educational access to the rich
and white.” They remain faceless because
Travis lacked the courage to name any of them.

As a white, more
or less unemployed professor, I’ve always dared “go upright and vital, and
speak the rude truth in all ways” (Emerson), especially regarding institutions
of higher education employing me. Travis
blindly, if not religiously, praises those institutions as “revered.”Likely, he has never mustered the courage or
dared think as an independent citizen to actually question and challenge
them.

Travis and the
bulk of educrats seem purposefully ignorant of the damage left-wing ideological
political correctness has been doing to higher education, especially in the
form of restricting (often unconstitutionally!) democracy’s cornerstones, vigorous
debate and freedom of speech. Why the egregious ignorance?
Evidently, it is self-serving.

As a white
citizen, I take offense at the anti-white racist programs educrats have
institutionalized in those so-called “revered”
establishments of higher education.Affirmative
Action and the Un-Fair Campaign (see http://unfaircampaign.org)
are several examples.Institutionalized
multiculturalism has served to diminish the very “tenets of American Liberty”
(the words are Travis’) more than anything else on
college campuses across the nation.

Yet why the silence with that regard? Why do our so-called
“revered” institutions of higher learning evidently prefer diversity over
democracy? Why have most, if not all, of them established Departments of
Diversity, as opposed to Departments of Democracy? Could educrats like Travis possibly be unaware
of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education and the annual statistics it compiles with regards campus speech codes?

“Public
education faculty, staff, and administrators need to believe they are in a
war,” notes Travis, but I note in a war not with the nebulous “anti-egalitarians,”
but rather with freedom-of-speech libertarians. In fact, the politically-correct institutions of
higher education praised across the board by Travis tend to be
anything but egalitarian in nature. Conservative white students, for example,
are surely not considered on an equal footing with minority students. The
professorate is anything but egalitarian.

Finally,
how can independent-minded citizens, as opposed to politically-correct indoctrinated college
graduates and professors, possibly agree with Travis’ overall assessment of
America’s institutions of higher learning as “revered,” especially when the majority of
those institutions willingly and often illegally suppress freedom of thought,
freedom of expression, and freedom of speech? Neither Travis nor Thought & Action
deigned to respond to this counter-essay.Perhaps both he and editor Mary Ellen
Flannery are examples of those anti-egalitarians.

Friday, October 12, 2012

Fluttering Dichterlings

There’s often a world of cocooned vacuity on the website of the Academy of American Poets... becausethe high-and-mighty
Academy chancellors are as established order as it gets.Do not offend is their mantra.Smile, you’re on clever camera!You’d be hard-pressed to find just one
dissident mind amongst the lot of them.Gary Snyder?Maybe 100 years ago,
but certainly not today. He's comfortably gone from Beatnik to tenured emeritus academic stuffed in the established-order canon. Oops.He’s no longer on the chancellor roster.A handful of poets were
asked on the Academy website (poets.org) to respond to the following question posed by some invisible Academy
chancellor or likely lackey thereof:

“What do you see as the role of the poet in today’s culture?”

Now,
if I were asked that question, I’d state upfront precisely what the chancellors would not wish to hear, for evidently they'd feel inevitably and uncomfortably, though indirectly, targeted. The poet, above and
beyond all else, ought to decry censorship, speak rude truth even at the expense
of literary and/or academic career, and otherwise be a soldier/defender of freedom
of speech and vigorous debate, democracy's cornerstones.He or she ought to have the
courage to especially denounce the censorship effected by organizations like the Academy of American
Poets.A few years ago, I’d contacted members of an earlier flock of chancellors who proved
indifferent to censorship. One of them is present in the current flock, prof emeritus, ex-hippie Lyn
Hejinian.No matter. The careers of chancellor Dichterlings depend on chancellor
Dichterlings turning a blind eye and adorning a classy-looking muzzle.

Mary
Jo Bang was first to present a response:“Today, as in any era, there are myriad roles
for poets: semiotician, elegist, eulogist, gamer, white noise machine,
musician, Sapphist, theorist, father figure, bird watcher, a video projection
of a moving mouth—all trapped behind the glass of Wittgenstein's fly-bottle.”Jo
Bang seems to excel like most other known poets in the art of vacuous verbiage.
Perhaps that’s the true role of today's poet.Brilliant, Jo Bang!

Mark
Bibbins was next in line:“To point out that
today's culture has spinach in its teeth and egg on its face.”Now, that’s a good way to avoid speaking rude
truth!Cover it up with egg… and why not
throw some bacon in its mouth too?Brilliant, Bibbins!

Timothy
Donnelly fired out the fundamental problem, without of course realizing it was in fact a
problem:“The role of the poet qua poet
is to write poems. What is the role of the architect in today's culture? What
is the role of the chef? The answers are self-evident. A poet writes poems. I
don't see any other additional role or function or responsibility that all
poets share...”Yes, the poet as ostrich supreme. Brilliant, Donnelly!

Randall
Mann echoed Donnelly’s modus operandi of scribouilleur uber alles: “The
poet should shut the door and write poems, and then, after much time and care,
show the world. If this goes well, the role-playing will take care of itself.”Yes, the poet as role player certainly
mirrored the sad reality of most poets as role-playing poseurs. Just look at their websites. Brilliant, Mann!

Ben
Mirov noted with a little touch of fanciful Dali:“The role of the poet in today's culture is
the same as it's always been: to be a huge transparent eyeball.”But it
took more than a mere eyeball.It also
took a mouth and especially the courage to open it when doing so might irk the
flock!Brilliant, Mirov!

Brenda
Shaughnessy suggested:“Not that the poet's work
makes it all the way out into actual ‘culture’ very often, but nonetheless, I
do see the poet as someone whose role it is to push back against
anti-intellectualism, anti-activism, and passivity in general.”

Yet
how not to be anti-intellectual when the intellectuals remained buffered
in academic herds, ever truncating freedom of speech and vigorous debate in the name of today's world religion: PC?Would Shaughnessy remain passive now that she's
been informed the Academy not only censored my remarks but also banned me
from participating in its online forums several years ago? But of course she would! Brilliant, Shaughnessy!'

Trigger Warning: This Blog May Contain Highly Offensive Content for Comfortably Entrenched Academics, Poets of the Status Quo, Politically-Correct Indoctrinees, and Gatekeepers of All Shades, Colors, Ages, and Sexual Orientations.

VERITAS NUMQUAM PERIT

Locate what you may believe to be errors in these blog entries, and I will rectify them, if in fact errors, and readily admit wrong for each and every one of them. To dismiss the writing and cartoon sketches, however, with ad hominem and quips simply serves to deflect attention from their truths. When you choose to dismiss someone as "angry" and "bitter," one must assume you are simply projecting your own anger and bitterness. Try instead logical point-by-point counter-argumentation.